The Strange Death of Edmund Godfrey

by Alan Marshall

  Another witness, Richard Wheeler, went to Godfrey’s house on the Tuesday to ask whether he had turned up, he found the mace-bearer of the mayor there talking to Henry Moor. Moor confirmed that nothing had been heard of the magistrate but what the churchwarden Parsons had told him and what a new witness, a man sawing wood in Soho fields, had said. This individual, called Sawyer, claimed to have seen Godfrey in Soho. Furthermore, Sir Joseph Williamson was later to note that: ‘On Tuesday evening [a man who from other sources we learn was named Thomas Morgan] went round by that place [Primrose Hill] to dresse a horse & washed his hands in a pond, &, saw nothing.’69 Robert Forest later claimed to have been hunting with his pack of hounds earlier on Tuesday at the place where the body was to be found, and there was no body there at that point. With his friend Henry Harwood he also hunted there on Wednesday, and he claimed that they had both beaten the area and the ditch in search of quarry. The pair may well have been the ‘soldiers’ whom the landlord of the White House near to Primrose Hill saw there looking for hedgehogs. Either way, such a lonely spot seems to have been quite crowded during those few days.70

  WEDNESDAY 16 OCTOBER

  Robert Southwell was at the Privy Council early on Wednesday and once again he noted that the Godfrey brothers were in attendance. But the Duke of Norfolk had that day come in with another tale that Edmund Godfrey had gone off in secret to marry a lawyer’s widow, one Mrs Offley. This once more ‘putt the matter into laughter for that day’.71 Some time during the week Richard Adams was also talking to the Earl of Powis at the end of Lombard Street, when he saw Mr Harrison, the estranged nephew of Godfrey, and crossed the street to talk to him. Adams asked Harrison for the truth about his uncle and the latter replied that the report was that papists had murdered him. Also at some point in the week Elizabeth Dekin, a servant to Mr Breedon of Hartshorne Lane, was told by her fellow servant John Oakley that he had seen Edmund Godfrey on the Saturday evening walking near the Water-gate at Somerset House in the Strand. He also said that there was a man or two near Godfrey at that point. Oakley was positive that it was the magistrate as he doffed his hat to him and Godfrey did likewise. Although this witness came forward long after the event, we will return to the placing of Godfrey near Somerset House when Miles Prance enters the tale.72

  THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER: THE DISCOVERY OF THE BODY

  Around midday on Thursday 17 October Adam Angus, the curate of St Dunstan’s-in-the-West was browsing at a bookshop in St Paul’s churchyard.73 A young man in a grey-coloured suit who was passing by stopped, touched Angus on the shoulder and said that the missing Edmund Godfrey had been found in Leicester Fields, by the dead wall with his own sword run through him. He then walked off. A worried Angus went off to the vicar of St Martin’s-in-the-Fields, Dr Lloyd, who earlier in the week had been making inquires of his own among the vestrymen. Angus told Lloyd of the mysterious incident. At around the same time, about 1 o’clock, William Bromwell, a baker, and John Waters, a farrier, both from the parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields, were dodging the raindrops as they trudged over the fields towards the White House tavern near Primrose Hill. While crossing one of the fields on the south side of the hill, the pair saw a sword scabbard, belt, a stick and a pair of gloves, lying together hard by the hedge. Presuming they belonged to a man who had gone into the ditch to relieve himself, they left well alone. They soon reached the White House and over their drinks mentioned their find to the landlord John Rawson. Rawson, a man with an eye for an opportunity, asked them why they had not picked the goods up and brought them into the alehouse. He mentioned that there had been several soldiers earlier in the week hedgehog-hunting out there and that it might have been one of them who had left the goods behind. Having heard the men out, Rawson evidently thought it worth his while to get hold of the goods, so he offered both of them a shilling for a drink if they would go back with him to look for them. But it was now raining hard and as a result the men sat back, supped their ale and waited for the skies to clear.74

  In a newsletter of the time, William Griffiths was to give a slightly different version of these events in that he added an extra two characters to the tale.75 He was to claim that Edward Linnet, a butcher from St Giles, and his dog were also in the company of Bromwell and Waters and that it was the butcher’s dog that uncovered the body. Yet Linnet makes little appearance in other evidence thereafter. He was not called to the inquest and made only a brief appearance in the Shaftesbury papers. Was he the butcher who was in the fields on the Monday and Tuesday? The mysterious butcher and his dog, however, were to reappear as an important factor in some historians’ views of the affair, as we shall see below.76

  Whatever the truth of who was there, what do we know for certain of the tavern called the White House? Summoned before the Lords Committee that investigated Godfrey’s death, the landlord, John Rawson, said that he was a Protestant. Although he had few visitors during the winter, his tavern was much busier in the summer when many Londoners came to take the air on Primrose Hill. The coroner John Cooper was to claim that the building itself was a poor place with little to commend it, having no hangings or accommodation and scarcely a glass window to keep out the draughts. While its regular patrons were a mixed lot, some of the most interesting regulars were a group of tradesmen who kept a club there. Mr Horny, a tailor of St Giles, thought he heard Rawson call these men ‘papist dogs’, and he thought the clubmen were all papists, except one Greenway.

  It is clear that some of these men were in the tavern at the time of the inquest, for the club was to meet on the Sunday after this event. As a club the men were later noted for having discoursed freely about any number of things. They included one Swannet or Stanwick, a waterman who kept a victualling house in St Giles by the pump near by Noah’s Ark. Another member was none other than Mr Moyle or Mulys, a gentleman’s stewart who lived with his son Blundell, a milliner, also a member of the club, in St Giles. Mulys was an acquaintance of Edmund Godfrey and indeed was to claim that he had had a conversation about Oates with the magistrate some five or six days before the 12 October. The other members of the club included: Edward Grove, a strongwaterman who lived over against the Horse Shoe tavern in Drury Lane; Cawthorne, a joiner whose business was hard by New Market; William Brand, a silversmith; Greenway, a Protestant oilman in Russell Street; Currey, a silversmith; and Cosey, a Protestant pewterer over by Drury Lane. By far the most important member of the White House club, however, was ‘Mr. Prince a silversmith in Holborn’. This was none other than the Miles Prance, who was to be an important figure in the trials that followed Godfrey’s death. Prance later confirmed his attendance at the club before the Lords Committee, mainly by denying that he had been to the White House in the previous twelve months, although he may well have been closer to events on Friday 18 October than he later revealed. Rawson claimed the men themselves did not game but did spend a groat apiece on entertainment. Greenway said that they were not a club as such, but they met sometimes and discoursed about various things – but not, he hastened to add, about state matters.77

  In any event after further talk both Bromwell and Waters finally agreed, in return for a shilling, to go back with Rawson to try to locate the spot where they had seen the discarded goods. It was now about 5 o’clock. They succeeded in locating the place and there found the goods, but as Rawson stooped to pick up the scabbard, he thought he saw a body in the ditch on its belly with a sword through it sticking seven or eight inches out of its back. At this the men seem to have panicked; they went immediately to the churchwarden of the parish house to tell him of their discovery. But he was ill and they soon found themselves before the door of Constable John Brown, who lived in a house near St Giles Pound.78

  As soon as word was brought to Brown he immediately called upon his neighbours. So it was that William Lock and thirteen or fourteen men went with Brown to view the scene. The body was located in a drainage ditch on the south side of Primrose Hill. The hill was surrounded by various fields fenced in by high mounds and
ditches, and the drainage ditch lay some two fields away from the White House, ‘so cover’d with the Bushes and Brambles, that it was a hard matter to see the Body, till one were come just upon it’.79 There were some deep, dirty lanes to be crossed to approach the ditch, and the gates between the fields were generally left unlocked. That week’s weather had been rather stormy, and it was later alleged that area around the place was so dirty that the constable and his men, who carried the body, got filthy up to their saddle skirts. With an English propensity for noting the weather, however, others claimed that much of the week had been fair with only a few showers of hail or rain. Griffith’s newsletter noted that the gates through to the grounds where the body lay were found to be ‘forced, and . . . tracks, it was first thought of a coach . . . upon better examination [were] found by Serjeant Ramsey [Serjeant at Arms to the Lord Treasurer Danby] to be only those of a cart’.80 These marks, it was claimed, were fresh and there was also much hay strewn about the fields either to feed the animal that had pulled the cart there or, in a more sinister interpretation, abandoned after being used to cover the body of Edmund Godfrey.

  With John Rawson and the others in attendance, however, Brown and Lock got into the ditch. Brown’s own words describe the scene. There was, he said, ‘A dead body lying in the ditch of the field, called Primrose Hill, with the face downwards, and sword run through it, coming out at the back; but this deponent not knowing who the same was, lying on the face, turned the said body, and found it to be Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey and this deponent, well observed the place where the said body lay in the ditch.’81

  In the gathering gloom, for by now it was nearing 8 o’clock and coming on blustery, Brown made his decision. Having noted the posture of the body, he drew the sword out of it and, together with his men, heaved it out of the ditch. They confirmed that it was indeed Godfrey. The sword was noted as having a point covered in blood, but the part embedded within the body was black without any blood on it. They then carried the body back over the fields to the White House.82

  It is worth noting at this point the original posture of the corpse. Godfrey was lying in the ditch with a sword run through him just under his left breast; it came about seven or eight inches out of the right side of his back. The hilt of the sword was three inches from the ground. One of Godfrey’s hands was doubled under and he seemed to lean on it, while the other hand was lying upon the bank of the ditch. His ‘hair chamlet’ coat was thrown back over his head. His hat and periwig were lying among the bushes over his head. No band or cravat was found on him. It was later claimed that Godfrey had had a large laced band on when he left home; this was now missing. However, Judith Pamphlin later told Mrs Gibbon that Godfrey had himself torn off his band on the previous Thursday.83

  Once at the White House, Constable Brown had the body placed on a table and searched. By the light of candles they found in one pocket six guineas wrapped in paper, four broad pieces of gold and half a crown also wrapped in paper. In the other pocket were two rings (one with a diamond), one guinea, £4 in silver and two small pieces of gold. On one of the magistrate’s fingers was another ring. But the pocket book, which Godfrey used to make notes of his examinations and interrogations, was missing. The other goods, the sword, scabbard, belt, gloves and stick were all later confirmed to have belonged to the magistrate. Some said that they were quite weather beaten.84

  Thomas Paulden was once more indulging himself in the good company of the Duke’s Coffee House that evening when two men came up on horseback and shouted for help. The company all rushed out and they were told the missing Edmund Godfrey had finally been found. In the meanwhile Brown and the others went to Godfrey’s home to break the bad news to Henry Moor that his master had been found at last. It was nearing 10 o’clock by the time they arrived at Hartshorne Lane. There they found not only Moor but Michael and Benjamin Godfrey, as well as their relative Mr Pluncknett and Danby’s man Serjeant Ramsey. At first Moor and Godfrey’s brothers queried whether the body really was that of Edmund, but Pluncknett said he would go with the constable and his men to examine it while Ramsey excused himself to go off to break the news at court. Brown was told to meet him for further orders at the Chequer Inn in Charing Cross by 1 o’clock that morning at the latest.

  Pluncknett, Brown and his neighbours rode through relatively quiet city streets and out into the dark countryside. Once at the White House Pluncknett was shown Godfrey’s corpse and, recognising it, cried out ‘This is my Brother Godfrey[!]’. He then insisted on arming the company with lights in order to visit the ditch. Only then did Pluncknett, Brown and their followers make their way back down to Charing Cross where Ramsey by now awaited them. Ramsey now dismissed the weary Brown, who was no doubt reassured by his statement that the Coroner of Middlesex, Mr Cooper, had already been informed and the matter was now in his hands. Brown was to be available, nevertheless, for the inquest that would surely follow.85

  THE CORONER’S INQUEST: 18–19 OCTOBER

  Friday 18 October now dawned. As required by the law in such cases, a coroner’s jury, assembled by Mr John Cooper, Coroner of Middlesex, met to consider this most mysterious death. Established in 1194, the Coroner’s Office was an important institution in matters of sudden or suspicious death. While not generally a medical man in the seventeenth century, it was usual for a coroner to be of some social standing.86 The attitude of the coroner and his jury was to prove of some significance in the assessment of the case that now lay before them. The inquest was, of course, a public drama, and as such it was subject to the usual pressures brought by family and friends of the deceased. In addition, it would soon have been realised that the case had unique political overtones. In itself the inquest had to rely upon lay interpretations of the way in which Godfrey had met his end. Although in this instance expert medical men were also to be called in to assess the nature of the magistrate’s death, in fact, their medical evidence has been subject to examination and criticism ever since. It was also later claimed of this particular jury that much art and ingenuity was used against it to get it to deliver the right verdict. It was said that the jury was first of the opinion that the verdict was felo de se, or suicide, and that it had to be persuaded otherwise.87 In addition, it was claimed that the jurymen were refused an autopsy on the body, which appears to have been untrue, and that John Cooper turned the body over to Godfrey’s family as soon as he could. The reality was somewhat different.

  In general, the inquest followed the rules of others of the era, but it began badly. Cooper had not even begun his difficult task when the Coroner of Westminster, Mr White, turned up. He claimed that he was there at the request of some in St Martin’s parish who evidently mistrusted Cooper’s abilities. White offered either to assist in or wholly take over the case. Naturally offended, Cooper rejected both moves outright and stood his ground, alleging, quite legitimately, that the case belonged to his jurisdiction. There followed a ‘warm contest’ between the two men over their jurisdiction and Cooper refused to allow his rival any part in the affair. After the two coroners had argued and made fools of themselves, someone finally made the peace and the two eventually came to an agreement that satisfied Cooper. Mr White withdrew and was given a guinea for his troubles by Michael Godfrey who, together with Dr Lloyd, had apparently been behind this move.88

  It is said the jury, John Cooper (the coroner) and Constable Brown then went at around 10 o’clock to view the place where the body had been found. There was also a ‘great concourse of people’ either already there or trailing along behind them and messing up the ground. Indeed, the crowd seems to have included the two Godfrey brothers, a surgeon, Zachary Skillarne, whom Michael had invited along, Godfrey’s clerk Henry Moor and, on Danby’s behalf, his Serjeant-at-Arms Ramsey.89 In fact, quite a lot of people came to view the place and then the body. They saw the ditch where it had lain and then they went to see Godfrey himself, still lying on a table where he had been placed the previous evening. Brown claimed the body’s neck was broken: ‘It
was very weak and one might turn his head from one shoulder to another.’90 One Hobbs later claimed he had told a Dr Goodall that it would be very well if Michael Godfrey would send for a surgeon and a physician from the court to satisfy all persons. He also claimed that he thought Godfrey’s face was not only ‘blotted’, but the violence done to him could be seen in his bloody eyes; he did not observe any fly-blows. This, it was claimed, was an important point, as it proved that putrefaction and insect infestation had not yet set into the corpse.91

  At some point the body was stripped. This seems to have been done after the Chases and Mr Lazinby saw it for the first time. Mr Chase, the king’s apothecary, and his son came to view the body and noted the two wounds and a great contusion on the left ear, and that the magistrate’s whole face was very much bruised. Chase later claimed that he was asked by the interfering Dr Lloyd to go once again to see the body on the Saturday, and on that second viewing he found a swelling on the left ear, as if a knot had been tied there. He thought Godfrey had been beaten from the neck to the stomach. Four years later, in 1682, Mr Lazinby, from the king’s court, was called to testify and he said that on seeing the body he thought that Edmund Godfrey appeared to have been strangled. Indeed, the cloth that strangled him had been kept about his neck until he was cold. He went on to say that in cases where people are hanged and let down while still warm, the blood would drain away and their faces would become very pale. In Godfrey’s case, however, the blood could not drain away and it had made his face look bloody. He also saw some blood near the ditch. From the neck to the stomach and breast, Lazinby noted, the body was very discoloured and black. After he and Chase senior had seen the body, Lazinby went off for a glass of beer while Chase junior remained behind. It was he who unbuttoned Godfrey’s collar and found there two great creases both above and below it; Lazinby was once more sent for to have yet another look. He put the collar together and observed it made a mark, like a straightening upon a finger, the neck being swelled above and below the collar by strangling with a cord or cloth. The body’s eyes were also bloodshot, as if Godfrey had had a great cold or had sustained a blow on the forehead or temple. Lazinby noted that Godfrey’s clothes were not wet, which surprised him, as there had been a ‘storm’ the previous afternoon. Apparently there was a great fire blazing in the ale house, which may have accounted for this drying out.92